Dead Embers (25 page)

Why do people assume I know more than I really do about
Asgard and its many realms?

If anything, my ignorance justified Mika's presence,
something that irked me more now than it did when we'd left Asgard. I hadn't
wanted her along in the first place, and now I had to admit I needed her. No
friggin' way.

Mika inclined her head, her eyes on my face as if pleasantly
contemplating my ignorance. "The dwarfs are talented metal smiths. They
run the forges night and day. I am surprised we did not hear them sooner."
She smiled, clearly loving the fact that I'd missed Dwarf Culture 101.

Mika opened her mouth again, as if to continue to fill in
the overly large gaps in my dwarfish knowledge. But before she could start, I
said, "We should get moving. I need to get in fast and get out
faster." I injected a bit of spine into the words.

Mika's eyes grew large and she did a tiny double take, as if
assessing if it was worth it to challenge me. Then she shrugged, gripped her
sword, and slid along the wall the few feet to the corner. She popped her head
around the edge, pausing only a moment before she disappeared into the light
without a backward glance.

I hurried to the corner and peered around it. The deserted
passage glowed bright with torchlight.

Great, we're afraid of a bunch of scary old torches.

Mika strode down the passage, her back stiff. The girl's
fast, wide stride forced me to trot along after her like a little puppy. For a
mean second I wondered if she was doing this deliberately, trying to make me
feel weak by making me run to keep up with her.

We barely made it a few yards down the hall when a cacophony
of raucous laughter and the tinny notes of some strange instrument floated
towards us. Up ahead, the corridor ended in a large doorway, doors flung open
into a dining hall, the source of all that noise.

Mika froze in place and looked back at me, her face
expressionless and waiting. I ran to her, shook out the cloak and threw it
around us, hoping we could get through the room undetected. And hoping the
tension between us could handle small, confined spaces.

Dozens and dozens of dwarfs filled the room. Now we had to
navigate this teeming pit of bodies. So not part of the plan. My heart thumped
so loud it almost seemed to drown out the sound of the terrible music. But I
swallowed the throb of fear.

"Well, pretty much looks like we have no choice,"
I whispered, glancing back the way we'd just come. "That's the way out and
the way to the forges. Guess
that
is not the way to go."

Mika nodded, oddly silent. Together, wrapped within the
cloak, we shuffled toward the entrance and stepped inside.

***

Inside the large, cave-like room, dozens of tables stretched
out in long lines. I smiled. The tables and the accompanying stools were all so
small. Dwarf size. Cute. And scary at the same time.

Two guards flanked the entrance, and we tiptoed right past
them, walking down a path dividing the room into two. Of course, we were
invisible, but I was still terribly afraid we'd be caught. All we needed was to
step on someone's toe, or bump into someone, or trip ourselves up and we'd be
dead meat.

A loud burst of laughter and a shout drew our attention to
the back of the room. A rather rotund, red-headed dwarf on the dais stared out
into the crowd, shock and soup plastered on his face. Clearly his audience had
failed to appreciate his musical talents.

Shouts from the crowd bade him to get off the stage. Another
shout went up, and a name was chanted, over and over. It sounded like
"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah," but I couldn't be sure.

A group of dwarfs, decked out in garish blood-red tapestry
tunics, which did nothing for their grotesque faces, escorted a girl through
the crowd toward the stage. Although I couldn't see her face, my gut twisted.
She was really only a tiny bit taller than her guards, but still as tall as a
short human girl might be.

Once on stage they spun her to face the audience, and one
dwarf guard poked the girl in the ribs. "Sing!" he roared.

The girl flinched, her eyes downcast. Dark shadows
underlined her eyes, and her thin shoulders hunched over in a defeated slump.
Her hands, hanging before her, were bare except for twin bands of brutal red
burned into her skin.

The crowd began to chant her name again, "Sarah! Sarah!
Sarah!" until the guard bellowed at them, shaking a pair of black iron
shackles. The chanting subsided, and many of the onlookers eyed the shackles
with almost palpable fear. A silence fell. And a melodious sound rose within
the room.

The girl lifted her chin, her face devoid of all emotion,
and sang—each note clear and perfect.

I blinked, startled as I studied her dark hair, high
cheekbones, wide eyes.

A human girl?

I could be wrong. Glamored Valkyries looked human. So did
the Ulfr in their non-wolfy form. Even Steinn's so-good-to-look-at form hid his
real dragon self.

Her sweet, sad notes rose into the air and captured the attention
of the crowd. Captured the guard's attention, too. Both lookouts pivoted to
face the singer, transfixed by the melody. Enchanted by the voice of the poor
girl, I almost forgot where Mika and I stood—in a broad aisle flanked by
hundreds of boisterous dwarfs, protected only by a flimsy invisible fabric.

Right beside me, a dwarf let out a drunken laugh, liquid
spraying from his wide open mouth, saliva clumping in the whiskers at his lips.
He sloshed his wooden beer jug around, almost flinging it out of his hand,
right at me. I was saved only from the jug.

The contents were another story entirely.

Beer sloshed all over the cloak, and I froze; Mika stiffened
beside me. It must have looked strange to the drunken dwarf. Beer flying
through the air, landing on nothing, and sliding down nothing, then dripping
onto the stone floor. From the edges of nothing.

I held my breath as the dwarf stared at me and struggled to
focus on what he thought he saw. Maybe he tried too hard, because eventually
both eyes moved inward and he ended up cross-eyed. Then he shuddered, closed
his pretzeled eyes and fell over at my feet.

Beer coma.

I snapped my gaze to Mika and gave an urgent nod toward a
door just to the right of the stage. "Now," I mouthed, not wanting to
risk even a whisper. At the opposite end of the room, two large doorways marked
a pair of exits. We made a beeline for the nearest one.

Almost there.

While stumbling through the raucous crowd, we stepped on
each other's toes too many times for comfort. I struggled to breathe, because
it felt like the crowd was beginning to close in on us. Our pathway narrowed
more and more, the closer we got to the other side of the room.

We swerved, avoided a chubby, grog-bearing maid and stepped
over another dwarf, who sprawled across the aisle, eyes rolling into the back
of his head. These guys certainly had no idea of the concept of self-control.

A few yards from the exit, we squeezed behind a slouching
dwarf who stood too close to the wall. The cloak brushed against the back of
his hand, and I froze, not daring to even blink. The dwarf grunted, shrugged
and scratched at his hand. Good thing he had eyes and ears only for the singing
woman.

The song lasted long enough for Mika and me to sneak past
the stage toward the doorway, our sanity and lives barely intact.

Just as we made it to the exit, another dwarf trotted across
the threshold into the room, heading straight for me, about two seconds away
from slamming right into me.

I was too stunned to move. And in that moment I knew this
was it.

We were done for.

Shock froze me in place for almost too long. At what seemed
like the very last second, I spun around toward Mika, out of the way of the
oncoming tapestry-garbed dwarf. The movement created a sudden rush of air, an
invisible breeze that ruffled the coarse hairs of the dwarf's unruly eyebrows
but went largely unnoticed by their owner.

His attention remained fixed on the singer. Not her voice,
just the girl herself. My heart thumped. What was in store for her now? The
guard barreled to the stage, gesturing wildly until the music squeaked and
ground to a stop.

Grumbles and shouts rose from the more strident of the
girl's fans within the discontented audience. The redheaded guard loped onto
the stage and tugged the girl toward him, shackles clinking in his fist. A
strange hush fell upon the crowd at the sight of the shackles, and Red shook
them again, facing the sea of silent faces.

The dwarf's voice traveled toward us. "Shut up, all of
you. One more sound and she gets the shackles." He laughed, enjoying the
discomfort of the audience and the terror in the girl's eyes. "Come, girl.
She
wants you. Now."

I tugged at Mika's sleeve. "We'd better get out of here
before he comes our way." We slipped out of the hall into another
identical torch-lit stone passageway, unsure which way to go.

The burly guard came up close behind us, dragging the silent
girl with him. His thick, pudgy fingers dug deep into her arm, but she paid no
attention to his grip or the pain he surely caused her. Sarah just stared
ahead, wisps of oily brown hair hanging limp around her face, her eyes free
from the added burden of hope.

Mika and I plastered ourselves against the wall just in
time. The guard walked past, his arm brushing against the cloak's silky fabric.

The guard flinched and stopped, staring hard at his hand,
turning his arm over and over. He studied the empty air next to him intently,
confusion dulling his already un-scintillating personality.

His? No,
hers
. I did a double take at the dwarf's
face. Not a man! A dwarf woman. Very un-girly bushy eyebrows twitched, and then
she spun away, not caring to waste time on strange and inexplicable things.

"Follow him. I mean, her," Mika whispered in my
ear, grinning at me.

A moment later my amusement died when the captive girl spoke
for the first time. "What does she want with me?" Each syllable fell
emotionless from her mouth, her accent clipped, formal English. But her cool
tones failed to mask the hopelessness in her eyes.

Her captor snarled, "She wants you to sing, little
bird." Sarah flinched and hugged her spare frame with both her thin arms,
as if they would be sufficient protection. They weren't. "Come, we had
better not keep her waiting. She is in a bad mood today. Best we just get on with
it, then we can all avoid a lashing." The guard pulled the girl roughly by
one elbow and walked on down the corridor.

I nudged Mika, who'd remained stiff beside me during the
little discussion between the dwarf and her captive. At least now we knew how
to find the queen. Things had just gotten much easier for us. All we had to do
was follow.

While we shuffled along, I watched the wretched girl, her
brown hair matted, her garments stained and worn out. Her accent was definitely
not modern; it sounded more like the way people spoke in old Victorian movies.
How long had she been imprisoned here? Had she ever tried to escape?

The girl let out a sigh, her hands dropping to her sides.
The red bands at her wrists sent a shiver down my spine; the memory of the audience's
reaction to the metal cuffs increased my repulsion. Were those hideously black
shackles a form of torture or a punishment?

Mika tugged at my arm. It must have been my silence that
tipped her off. When I glanced at her, she narrowed her eyes at me. "Do
not even think of rescuing her," she hissed. "That is NOT our
mission."

I didn't answer.

We followed the now-silent pair down the corridor. Just a
few minutes and too many thunderous heartbeats later, we paused before an
ornately carved doorway, which the dwarf pushed open slowly. She shoved Sarah
into the room so hard that the frail girl stumbled, almost tripping over her
bare feet.

The dwarf crossed the threshold and heaved the door closed
with her shoulder. Just in time, I stopped its great stone bulk from totally
shutting us out. With an ear to the opening, I listened. The guard grunted,
fabric rustled and her muffled footsteps thudded away farther into the room.

We waited a few seconds, hidden beneath the cloak, in case
the dwarf returned to check why the door hadn't completely closed.

Nothing.

***

From somewhere inside the room, a guttural voice barked out
an order, and at once the sound of plaintive singing filled the air. Mika and I
slipped inside. The music masked the grate of stone on stone as we pushed the
door open farther, only wide enough to let us squeeze through. We hugged the
back wall until we stood a few feet from the doorway.

As it happened, we'd cleared the doorway just in time.

The great stone door swung wide open again behind us, sending
us scurrying away a safe distance along the wall. A trio of women marched in,
escorted by a second guard: two Huldra and an auburn-haired girl whose slim,
pale face niggled at my mind. Her elegance and grace were only enhanced in
comparison to the squat, chubby dwarf guards and the pair of shorter Huldra
beside her. She held her head with a cool confidence despite her captivity.

I turned to Mika and raised a puzzled eyebrow.

"Elf," she whispered.

So humans weren't the only ones being held captive in
Swartelfheim. My gut burned. I wanted to grab that awful queen by her neck and
twist the life out of her with my bare hands, but I tamped down my anger and
tried to concentrate.

Guided by the two stony-faced, tapestry-garbed guards, the
little band of women proceeded into the room until they reached a bed occupied
by a dark and shadowed figure. The bed was magnificent: an ornately carved
four-poster made entirely of gold and studded with thousands of winking and
glittering gems. Stunning. Gold net curtains hung around the bed, tied to the
four posts with ribbons of silky red. The blood-red bedspread, garish in color
and statement, clashed terribly with the beauty of the four-poster itself.